


A Zombie Story

by chiiyo86



Category: Misfits
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Gen, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:19:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a Monday night like any other Monday night; a night of being bored and broke and and having no other cares in the world (at least, aside from freaky powers they had never asked for, and one or two dead probation officers on their consciences). But then the zombies showed up. Now the gang are running for their lives - Alisha and Nathan's powers manifest interesting side effects when confronted with the zombies, Kelly has to bash a lot of heads, Simon has to make a choice to kill in order to save, and Curtis tries not to succumb to the temptation of killing Nathan instead of saving him. All in all, they'd rather be bored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kelly woke up one day and it was the end of the world.

Okay, so it didn’t really happened like that but that was what it felt like.

It was a Monday night and they were all hanging out at the bar where Curtis and Alisha worked. They were the only patrons left, as was often the case. Curtis had whined at them recently about leaving so they’d stop scaring off other potential customers, but now he was silent and morosely wiping glasses; Alisha was doing her nails and chatting in a low voice with Simon; and Nathan was sitting across Kelly and almost falling asleep in his beer.

Kelly barely needed to focus to know what they were all thinking. With time she had gotten control over her power and could block out most people, but it was different with them. Maybe it was having been in the storm together, maybe it was all the shit they had gone through, maybe it was fucking cosmic karma or something, but it was like they were fading onto her, like a red tee-shirt that turns all your knickers pink. When they were together, they were a constant murmur at the back of her mind. It wasn’t as annoying as it should have been; it was even soothing, in a way, perhaps because they all knew that she was reading their thoughts and mostly didn’t give a shit.

It was a Monday and she was bored as fuck, felt strangely moody, so Kelly did what she rarely did – she retracted into herself and _there_ they were. Alisha’s feet and back were hurting, Simon liked the colour of her nail polish, Curtis was thinking about Nikki who had left half-an-hour ago and going after her in his mind, while Nathan’s muddled thoughts were idly considering what it would felt like to die in an explosion. Kelly was about to yell at him for being so morbid, when a man stumbled inside.

“We’re closed,” Alisha said in a bored voice, even though it wasn’t true.

The man slammed the door behind him, and there _he_ was. He was so scared, his thoughts so incoherent with feeling that Kelly’s mind recoiled and she had to fight off nausea.

“You have to, hide, hide me please, they’re coming, they’re coming…”

“Who’s coming?” Simon said, frowning.

“I, I don’t know, they just attacked and I don’t know, one of them _bit_ me…”

Nathan was waking up, and grimaced at the man. “That guy is fucking insane,” he said.

“No, he’s not,” Kelly said, and it got all of them looking at her, even the weird man. “I can’t make sense of it and he’s scared but…”

She didn’t have the time to say more, because the door opened and there was a dark figure coming from behind the man, tall and ominous. It pushed the man, before unceremoniously trampling him. The man let out some kind of gurgled cry and then became silent.

“What the…” It was Nathan, and he was slowly pushing himself up to his feet.

“Oh my God.” This from Alisha, her voice very quiet and her hand in front of her mouth

There was the sound of broken glass, and it was Curtis, gaping in the direction of the entrance. Simon didn’t say anything, but he was thinking, _We need to get out of here._

The figure that had walked all over the scared stranger wasn’t alone, and there were other figures crowding at the door, and they were all moving slowly, careful maybe, and they were kind of… groaning. They looked human but they sounded like animals. And then they were in, the light from inside falling on them. Alisha let out a small cry.

Their pale faces were all atrociously deformed, not by nature but because they were grimacing, like they wanted to express things that human faces had not been made for. One of them turned his – _its_ – face toward Kelly and it looked like the flesh on its cheekbone was rotting. The thing wore glasses and a suit with a tie, but its eyes were glassy, no light at home there. But this wasn’t the worst, no, though it was coming close. The worst was that Kelly couldn’t get anything from them. No thought, no feeling. She may as well have been staring at a wall.

“They’re fuckin’ _zombies_ ,” Kelly breathed out; it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she had seen since the storm, she thought. Then the one looking at her gargled and something dark started to run down from the corner of its mouth, like blood but not quite. Kelly’s own mouth twisted with disgust.

“Zombies? No shit, Sherlock,” Nathan squeaked, his voice high with fear. “That’s just awesome. Why is this one looking at us like that?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not like you can die,” Kelly said. She felt absurdly calm, like her mind knew that what was happening was real but her heart was still suspending its judgement.

“Well, yeah, sure, I look forward to feeling what it’s like to be _eaten alive._ ”

The… – things, zombies, undead persons, whatever – moved suddenly like they were one, towards the bar where Simon, Alisha and Curtis were gathered. They weren’t moving very fast, stumbling, but there weren’t lots of places where Kelly’s friends could go, because the zombies were blocking the front door – and there was a back door but it was locked right now. It was probably the key to it that Curtis was frantically searching for when he crouched behind the bar, reappearing sometimes to throw expensive bottles at the zombies. Simon vanished and he must have taken Alisha by the arm because Kelly saw her being dragged by an invisible force in the direction of the back door.

 _I have to do something,_ Kelly thought, so she took a chair and threw it, hoping to distract the zombies from Curtis while he looked for the key.

“Hey, you ugly!” she shouted. The chair fell lamely on the floor, meters away from any zombie, but it still made some of them pause.

Nathan looked at her, his eyebrows raised so high they were disappearing behind his curly bangs. “You’re completely mad, you know,” he said, but he took a deep breath before he grabbed a chair to throw at the zombies, all while screaming like a lunatic and generally doing his best impersonation of insanity. Kelly wasn’t sure why he felt he had to act like that, but it worked. The zombies came at them, and soon Kelly and Nathan were trapped in a corner with only a chair each to brandish like the world’s lamest swords. The zombies were a little bit faster than they had seemed at first.

“I’m trying to remember why it was a good idea to draw their attention,” Nathan said, sounding out of breath.

“We’re buyin’ Curtis some time.”

“Time? Oh, time. That reminds me – don’t we have a fucking _time-traveller_ in our numbers?” He brought the chair he was holding down on one of the zombies’ head, and the wood shattered into splinters.

“You know it doesn’t work like that,” Kelly replied, like they were having an ordinary conversation over tea.

If Nathan had any reply to that, she couldn’t hear it because she was overwhelmed by zombies who were pressing her against the wall. Now they were close enough for her to know that zombies smelled _horrible_ , as zombies would. Their hands were all over her, pushing her, pulling her, and it was when she heard teeth snap somewhere above her that she realized that they were trying to bite her. As, of course, zombies would. She fought with renewed ardour, trying to push them back with the remnants of the back of her chair. She was getting out of breath, her arms were aching and she was feeling nauseous from the smell and the gurgling noises made by the zombies that sounded like they were about to throw up. Kelly tried to feel for the others but all she got was fear and more fear, and she didn’t know what was hers and what was theirs.

Something screamed. It didn’t sound even remotely human, so yeah, _something_ was the word. Kelly almost fell over face first when the zombies retracted, and when they moved aside she could see what was making that noise. There was a zombie rolling on the floor, his hands clawing at its face and neck like it thought it could get rid of whatever was hurting it. The veins on its neck and face had swollen and darkened. Beside it was standing a stunned Alisha, her clothes torn, looking down at the zombie. The other zombies were all looking at the scene, not moving or anything, and Kelly wondered whether they were afraid or fascinated, or maybe feeling nothing but still compelled to look.

“What did you do?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t know!” Alisha exclaimed, a note of hysteria in her voice. “I just touched it and it started screaming and…”

And the zombie just stopped moving, which caused Alisha to stop talking and gape silently at it. The thing looked properly dead, the kind of dead that never moved again.

“I’ve got the key!” Curtis suddenly shouted, and it somehow broke the spell.

Kelly felt a surge of adrenaline and started swinging the single piece of wood she had left in her hand, making a path for herself among the zombies and running in a mad rush to the back door. From the corner of her eye she saw Alisha shake herself off and follow. She wondered about Nathan but there was no time to check on him. Curtis was at the door, fumbling with the key while cursing under his breath, until he pushed the door open. Kelly felt someone press against her side and though she couldn’t see him, knew it was Simon from the feel of his mind. She ran through the door and was welcome by the cool air of the night.

They ran for a long time, purposeless. Kelly felt like she was moving in a dream and the confused and broken thoughts of her friends made it even more difficult for her to think. It was dark outside, no light in the alley where they had gotten out, but when they reached a bigger street the lamps shed a yellow light on how very, very wrong this night had gone.

Curtis had been running in front, the fastest of them of course, but he stopped suddenly; there was a muffed cry of pain that got lost in the air when invisible Simon bumped into him.

“Fuck. Oh, _fuck_ ,” Curtis said.

Kelly strained her neck to look above his shoulder, but when she saw what had made him stop she regretted it. There was a group of zombies in the middle of the street – not the ones that had attacked them because from the groaning Kelly could hear, those were still behind them – and they had caught a woman who started screaming, reaching out in their direction like maybe she had seen them and was calling for help. All they could do was watch as she was engulfed by the group of zombies, who were fighting each other to get to her like scavengers on a carcass.

“We should, we should get out of here,” Alisha murmured in a very small, trembling voice.

They could all agree to the wisdom in that. The zombies that had been coming after them seemed to have wandered away; maybe they had lost their trace, or maybe they had forgotten about them, but there were obviously enough zombies in town to be a worry. They went back, away from the big street and the light and the zombies before they finished doing whatever they had been doing to that poor woman. They knocked on doors, hoping for someone to take them in, but there was never any answer. Either people were sleeping obliviously, or they knew what was going on outside and were locking themselves up, or – well.

“Maybe they’re all zombies already,” Nathan mumbled.

“Shut up, Nathan,” Alisha said.

Kelly glanced at Nathan. There was something wrong with him: he was being _way_ too quiet, and he was never quiet, even when he was terrified – _especially_ when he was terrified. He looked very pale, but then Kelly imagined she didn’t look much more colourful herself.

They met several abandoned cars in the middle of the street, some of them looking like they had ran into each other, and there was something wrong with that too, though Kelly couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Hey!” Simon’s voice called from nowhere. “I’ve found an open window.”

He appeared suddenly, standing at the corner of the street. As they went to join him, Kelly thought again of the cars. She thought about it until it dawned on her – in those cars, there were never any bodies. They had seen blood, but no body, not in the cars and not in the streets.

Maybe Nathan had been right, after all.

\---

They made their way silently into the house, not daring to make any noise or try to turn on a light. Simon realized he had made himself invisible again when Kelly bumped into him and said, “Simon, is that you?”

“Yeah,” he said, and forced himself to be visible. “We should split up and search the house.”

For the occupants, whether they were sleeping, dead, or zombie themselves. He didn’t say it, but they had probably started to figure it out by themselves. In the movies, zombies bit people to make other zombies. This was the way of the world.

The house wasn’t big so it didn’t take very long to go through it. There was no one. Simon found a room with a big unmade bed. There was no blood, but sadly, it didn’t mean the occupants were still alive.

Kelly and Simon checked that all the doors were locked and the windows were closed with their curtains drawn, before they gathered in the living room and Alisha turned on a small lamp. They sat in circle on the floor like they were at a campfire, Alisha sitting close to Simon and leaning carefully against his side. Simon wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck, but knew better than do it. They were all silent for a long time.

“So I’m gonna say it for everyone,” Curtis said. “ _What the fuck_?”

“It has to be the storm,” Alisha said. “Everything freaky that happens here is always because of the storm.”

“But how did the storm create a _zombie virus_? It’s never done anything like that before.”

“Maybe it’s not a virus,” Kelly said. “Maybe it’s just someone’s ability. Someone is like, turning people into zombies.”

“But it’s spreading,” Simon said, “like a virus. The zombies are transmitting it to the people they attack, because…”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Kelly said. “There were no bodies. So the man who came into the bar is probably already one ‘em already.”

They had a general shudder at the thought. Nathan hadn’t said anything, Simon noticed, which wasn’t really like him. He was sitting on Simon’s other side and his head was bowed. Kelly must have realized too that something was wrong, because she called his name.

“Nathan?” And when he didn’t say anything, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Nathan still didn’t answer, but Simon saw that there was blood on the collar of his t-shirt.

“Nathan, are you hurt?” he asked, and dread made his mouth go dry and his whole body feel cold. “They didn’t – they didn’t _bite_ you, did they?”

Nathan made a sound, like he was hurting. “I dunno. There were so many. I feel… kinda weird.”

Simon grabbed his shoulder, a little too hard. “Fuck,” Nathan hissed. “Don’t touch me.”

Simon ignored him and pulled a little at the cloth from Nathan’s t-shirt to look at the wound. Nathan’s jaw was working, from pain or irritation, but he didn’t try to push Simon away.

“Holy shit,” Curtis said.

The others had come closer but after a look at the wound Alisha and Curtis drew away instinctively. Simon couldn’t blame them, because the wound was unmistakably a human bite.

“What?” Nathan said, sounding a little more lively than before. “What is it?” He started to twist his neck to look at his wound, but the bite was too close to his collarbone for that.

“You got bitten,” Kelly said roughly, her voice accusing like this was somehow Nathan’s fault.

“No,” Nathan said reflexively. And then, “Oh, shit. I’m so fucked.”

“Is he going to turn into one of them?” Alisha asked.

“We can’t be sure,” Simon said. His voice sounded like it was someone else talking.

“But that’s what you said earlier!” Curtis said. “You know how it is in the movies. They have to shoot people who are infected.”

“Hey!” Nathan shoved Simon aside but it was so weak that when Simon moved, it was pretty much of his own volition. “Who’s gonna shoot who? I don’t think I’m down with that plan!”

“Well,” Curtis said. “We don’t have any gun.”

Kelly hit his shoulder and turned to Nathan.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “Do you, like… wanna kill anyone or wha’?”

“Not particularly,” Nathan said slowly, like the question bore reflection. “Okay, maybe Curtis but to be fair he’s the one who wanted to kill me first.”

“I don’t want to kill you!”

Simon shot Curtis a look before turning back to Nathan. “No killing intent, that’s good. What else?”

“I don’t… feel very good, that’s all. I’m cold and kind of dizzy. My body aches.”

“Maybe you’re just in shock,” Kelly said hopefully. “We all need to rest. We should rest and see what happens.”

Curtis, Nathan and Kelly each found themselves a chair to rest on, and Simon and Alisha huddled together on the couch, but nobody actually slept. They just looked at each other warily and especially at Nathan, who had curled up in a deep armchair made of batten leather. His eyes were closed but his body was too tense for him to be sleeping.

An hour passed. Simon knew because he kept glancing at his watch, at the digits changing slowly like water dripping from a tap. He was starting to feel reassured – Nathan didn’t look like he was in the process of getting zombified, and the change had to be pretty quick for the epidemic to have spread so fast – when Nathan let out a pitiful sound, half-way between a cry and a whine.

“Nathan?” Kelly said.

Nathan started to uncurl his long limbs and got to his feet, swaying. He was terribly pale, looking like he was about to throw up. Instead, he crumpled on the floor.

Simon jumped on his feet to get to him. The others did the same but when they got there, none of them actually dared touch Nathan, staring instead at his shaking form.

“I think… I think he’s fuckin’ _dying_ ,” Kelly said.

An appropriately shocked silence followed that declaration.

“But he’s _immortal_ ,” Alisha said. “He’s not going to, like _die_ die.”

They looked down at Nathan whose face had turned an interesting shade of grey, and he looked… well, like he was already dead, if it weren’t for his laboured breathing.

Curtis spoke for them all. “He doesn’t look too good.”

“We should kill him,” Simon said. They all looked at him in horror and he felt the need to clarify, “I think this zombie…” He paused, looking for the right term. “This zombie thing,” he said resolutely. “It’s killing him. For real. But if we kill him ourselves his immortality will probably kick in and he will come back to life. Hopefully.”

They were thinking about it, he could see, hearing the truth in his words. Alisha was playing nervously with a curly lock of her hair, biting her lower lip. Curtis had his hands firmly planted in his pockets and was looking down, like trying to bore holes in Nathan’s skull. Kelly had her arms crossed under her breasts, hugging herself tightly.

“Fine,” Curtis said. “Who’s gonna do it?” He looked at Kelly.

“Me?” she exclaimed. “Why me?”

“Well, you’ve done it before. With Tony.”

“It was totally different, you dick! It was a fuckin’ accident. And it’s…” She blinked back tears. “It’s _Nathan_.”

“Should make it easier, no? Just think about the thousand times that prick insulted you.”

The discussion became more heated until Kelly looked ready to hit Curtis, a thunderous look on her face that was generally reserved to Nathan. Alisha wasn’t saying anything. Simon looked at Nathan, at how pale and weak, how unnaturally silent he was. He remembered their first day of community service, Nathan had called him _weird kid_ and Simon had thought that it was going to be just like school, a hell on earth of endless bullying.

He had killed for them. Sally had been an accident and he still felt guilty about her death, but he couldn’t regret it completely. He also had died for them, if he were to believe Curtis. He knew anyway he would do it without a second thought. He finally _belonged_ , and he wasn’t going to let anything take any part of that away from him. Not even some weird zombie thing.

He could very well kill Nathan to save him.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

That shut up Curtis and Kelly, who stopped fighting to gape at him. Alisha looked suddenly alarmed.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

“Someone has to. Look at him, he’s not going to last much longer. And if he’s mad at me, I don’t care, it’s not like it’s going to be the first time.”

“Simon,” Kelly said. “I… I can do it. Curtis is right, shouldn’t be hard to find a reason to bash his head in.”

She tried to smile, but Simon shook his head. He didn’t need to have her ability to read minds to know that she couldn’t. She hit Nathan all the time, but she couldn’t kill him.

“It’s alright,” he told her.

His resolution made, he had to find how to do it. Sally had died in a fight, when her head had hit the door handle. This was different, he was going to deliberately take Nathan’s life. They looked around the house and Curtis came up with a kitchen knife. He gave it to Simon, looking apologetic.

“I can…” he started, but Simon silenced him with a hand.

He kneeled by Nathan’s side and grabbed the knife with both hands, raised it above his friend’s chest. His palms were sweaty. The others were standing on the other side of Nathan’s body and they all wore expressions that mixed fascination and fear.

“You should try to hit the heart, yeah?” Alisha said.

“Yeah.” Simon nodded. “The heart.”

He gathered memories from biology lessons and move his knife to the left. He swallowed. He needed to put strength in his blow or it was going to be messy. He closed his eyes, and pushed down. The knife met resistance but he kept pushing. A gurgled moan made him open his eyes again, and he saw blood colouring Nathan’s lips, his mouth twisted in pain as he was trying to roll on his side. Simon let go of the knife hurriedly.

“Nathan!” Kelly cried out. She reached out to his face but stopped shy of touching him, like she was afraid to cause him more pain.

“Fuck, doesn’t look like you hit the heart,” Curtis said, crouched by Nathan’s shoulder with his hands hovering over him.

Alisha let out a whimper and brought her hand to her mouth. Simon could sympathize; he was about to be sick too. But before that, he had to finish it. Nathan was writhing on the floor so it was hard to get a hold on the knife, and when he tried to pull it out he found that he couldn’t.

“It’s stuck! Hold him, hold him!”

Kelly took Nathan’s head between her hands, whispering frantic apologies under her breath, and Curtis grabbed his arms. Alisha held Nathan’s legs, where cloth kept her from actually touching him – not that it would matter much in the state he was in.

With the others pressing Nathan down Simon could take the knife out of his chest, and didn’t wait before stabbing him again, this time with his eyes wide open so he wouldn’t miss. After a few very long seconds, Nathan stopped moving and moaning, and the house fell silent, save for their loud breathing.

“Is he…” Alisha started.

Kelly pressed her fingers to Nathan’s neck and nodded, before wiping the blood from her hands on the floor and turning to puke all over the expensive looking carpet.

“Oh, fuck,” Alisha moaned and pinched her nose with two fingers.

Curtis rubbed his own bloody hands on his trousers.

“Well,” he said, voice a little shaky, “I hope we won’t have any fucking zombie knocking on the door while we wait for him.”

They settled for the wait. They found some bread and ham in the kitchen and ate a little, though none of them was very hungry with the smell of blood and puke lingering in the living room. Kelly didn’t leave Nathan’s side, sitting by him with her arms around her knees. She barely looked up when Simon sat down next to her.

“Do you think it does somethin’ to him? Dying, I mean,” she added at his questioning look.

“What, do you mean like… If he dies too many time maybe he will die for good?”

“That too. I was just thinkin’… maybe it takes something from him, you know? Every time he dies and comes back. Maybe those bullshit powers, they take something from all of us.”

Simon thought about it. He had been afraid at the beginning that if he disappeared too many times he was going to stay invisible. That no one would ever to be able to see him again. He didn’t worry about it that much anymore, but it was something to contemplate. Maybe Curtis could end up lost in time, maybe Alisha could forget what it was like to touch someone. And Kelly…

“Maybe I’m gonna go mental from all the fucked up thoughts from people’s minds.”

She gave him a little smile, an apology for getting into his mind. He didn’t mind it, though. It was easier than speaking up sometimes. He glanced at Alisha, curled up on the couch. Curtis was sitting next to her and his head was bent as he was talking to her in a low voice. Simon felt his stomach twist a little at the sight. He wasn’t really jealous, he knew it was over between them and that Curtis had Nikki now. Still, they had been so beautiful together, so perfect. It was hard not to feel uncomfortable.

“Go see your girlfriend,” Kelly said. “I’m watching over that wanker.”

Simon nodded, a silent thank you, and went to the couch. Curtis looked up at him and stood up. Simon was going to say he didn’t have to leave but Curtis was quicker.

“I’m gonna take a piss,” he said.

Simon sat next to Alisha and she leaned against him.

“How is he?” she asked. “Is he still…”

“He’s still dead.”

“It’s been hours. What if, what if that zombie shit had taken away his immortality? What if he was dead for good?”

“He’s not.”

It sounded a lot like denial, but Simon couldn’t let himself think about that. He noticed that Alisha’s eyes were shining and that tears were pearling on her lashes.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with her sleeves.

“I can’t believe I’m crying over _Nathan_. But never mind me, I should be comforting you.” Her fingers circled his wrist over the fabric of his jacket, as close as she could from his hand without touching skin. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“You have a right not to be fine. Nathan’s like, your best mate or something.” She cringed like the admission pained her. “Not that I understand why, but he is and you had to kill him. That’s some fucked up shit.”

“I’ll be fine when Nathan wakes up.”

They heard Kelly yelp and they both startled.

“He’s alive!”

Simon and Alisha rushed to her side. From the corner of his eyes Simon saw Curtis come running, in the process of zipping up. Nathan was curled on his side, hands pressed against the bloody stains on his t-shirt.

“Ow, shit,” he groaned. “What the fuck happened?”

His eyelids trembled, and then he was glaring at them with blood-shot eyes.

“We killed you,” Kelly said. She hurriedly explained, “Whatever that zombie did to you, it was killing you and we were afraid it was gonna be for good.”

“So you thought it was a good idea to dig at my chest? Because I remember some fucking awful pain, like someone was trying to rip my heart out!” He looked down at himself, at the tear and the blood on his t-shirt. “That was a perfectly good t-shirt! Who did that, huh?”

“Um.” Simon blinked guiltily. “I did.”

“Well, thank you, thank you very fucking much! You think clothes grow on trees? I don’t have a lot of them, you know, remember how I’m homeless and shit? You could have done it a little more cleanly, it’s not like you don’t have practice with what’s her name, the probation worker…”

“Sally,” Simon murmured.

“Whatever. My point is…”

“Oi, prick!” Kelly hit him hard on the shoulder and he let out a high-pitched cry. “Simon saved you, alright? Be fuckin’ grateful!”

“Funny, I already regret saving him,” Curtis said. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” He kicked at Nathan’s thigh. “Stand up, we already wasted enough time because of you.”

“Hey, stop hitting me! It’s not like I _asked_ to be killed or bitten by a zombie. We can switch places, if you want. I’ll be the one hitting you, and you’ll be the one getting stabbed in the chest, see how much fun it is. ”

He started to push himself upright to get up, but stopped mid-motion and frowned.

“What the fuck?” he mumbled.

He twisted his upper body and started to roll over, only to fall back on the ground.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Curtis exclaimed. “We don’t have time for your games!”

“Nathan,” Kelly said, her brow furrowed anxiously. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t move my legs! Maybe you hit something with that knife, something vital and now I’m paralyzed or some shit and…”

Simon felt the blood leave his face, but Curtis hit Nathan again in the leg and Nathan yelped.

“Ow, what was that for?”

“Did you feel that?”

“Yes, I felt that you fucking twat!”

“Can you move your legs at all?”

Nathan frowned in concentration and wriggled one foot, then the other.

“Alright,” Curtis said. “I don’t have a medical degree but I’m pretty sure you’re not paralyzed. Maybe you’re still too weak from what that zombie did to you.”

“What are we gonna do?” Alisha asked. “We spent too much time here, it’s dawn already, they’re gonna come and…”

“We could leave him here,” Curtis said. He didn’t leave them time to react, “Just kidding. I wouldn’t do that to the zombies.”

“You know,” Nathan said gravely. “I feel a lot of hostility coming from you, Curtis.” He pressed a blood-stained hand against his heart. “That hurts.”

Curtis ignored him. “We’re gonna have to carry him I guess.”

Nathan looked up at him, arched an eyebrow, and raised his arms.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Pick me up.”

“What? Why me?”

“Well, look at all those muscles you have. You’re a fine specimen of manhood. You really want one of the girls to carry me? And, Barry, no offence, man, but you’re kind of a midget.”

Curtis and Nathan scowled at each other for a moment, until Simon interrupted them. Now that Nathan was better, or at least not dead or dying anymore, he felt the pressing need to move, the way they surely all felt it.

“We need to go. Curtis.”

Curtis sighed, defeated.

“Alright then.” He glared at Nathan. “One fucking comment from you and you’re zombie food.”

Nathan took on an expression of innocence that looked wrong on him.

“I’ll be as silent as a rotting corpse,” he said.

“Remind me why we worried about him?” Alisha whispered to Simon, but she was smiling and he knew she didn’t mean it.


	2. Chapter 2

Curtis was definitely having a very bad day. The zombies were a big thing, the fact that their town had taken an apocalyptic look and had gone even more crazy than it had been the last few months was too. But right now, Curtis was mostly focused on the burden on his back, keeping himself slightly bended forward to ease the weight. Nathan had tried to wrap his arms around his neck, had almost strangled Curtis before he’d swatted them away, and now Nathan’s fingers were digging painfully into his shoulders. His long legs were swinging on each side of Curtis’ hips, looking ridiculously like Curtis had grown another set of limbs. 

The others were watching them in silence. Simon’s big blue eyes looked about to bulge out of his head, and Alisha and Kelly were hiding their mouths behind their hands. 

“Oh my god,” Alisha finally blurted out in a fit of giggles. “You two look so fucking ridiculous!”

This set Kelly off, and she was laughing too. Simon was smiling his closed-mouth smile that was equivalent to a chuckle for him. Curtis gritted his teeth.

“Quit it,” he said. “Seriously, quit it or I’ll leave him here, I swear I will.”

“Hey!” Curtis felt Nathan’s bony elbow hit him in the arm. “That’s not fair, _I_ didn’t do anything!”

“That’s debatable. Also, hit me again and die.”

“I’m immortal.”

“Fine, hit me again and I’ll dismember you and scatter you across the town, see how you survive _that._ ”

Nathan was silent for a moment and Curtis had the fleeting hope that he’d shut him up. No such chance.

“That’s a thought,” Nathan said. “Not that I want to try because it sounds horribly, _horribly_ painful but I wonder what would happen. Also, what if I get beheaded? Am I like this _Highlander_ guy?”

“Shut up,” Curtis growled. “Let’s go now,” he said to the others.

Alisha had a look between the curtains, before nodding to indicate that there was no zombie in sight. And indeed, the street was deserted. There was an abandoned car in the middle of it, and when they walked past it Curtis saw bloodstains on the driver’s seat and on the floor, but there wasn’t any body in sight. 

“Look like there’s been some zombie feast here,” Nathan said in his ear.

Curtis kept walking without a word. He didn’t want to encourage the idiot, and he was also thinking about Nikki, about where she was now and whether she was okay. Hopefully with her teleportation she had managed to avoid the zombies. They walked for a while like that, none of them saying anything save for Nathan whispering dirty jokes in Curtis’ ear. 

“And she replies, ‘Yes, getting herpes – that’s why I’m here!’ C’mon, that one was funny, right?”

As much as Curtis wanted to clock the dick, he had to admit that the distraction was welcome, keeping darker thoughts at bay – not that he would ever admit that much to Nathan, of course. They walked until the light started to dim and the air started to cool. Curtis’ breath was getting shorter and shorter, and his back and arms hurt like a bitch. He was going to suggest they take a break when a silhouette profiled itself at the corner of the street.

“Fuck,” Kelly said.

“Maybe it’s another survivor,” Alisha said hopefully.

They all squinted at the figure. It was walking slowly, stumbling like a drunk, movements jerky and erratic.

“I don’t think so,” Curtis said.

Another figure followed the first one.

“Oh, shit,” Nathan said, warm breath tickling Curtis’s neck.

“Shit,” Kelly echoed. “We gotta go, now. Run!”

They spun around and started running in the direction they just came from, until they saw new zombies coming from the other end of the street. The things had obviously seen them because they were gaining in speed, moving intently in their direction as the wind brought back their growling and their putrefied smell. 

“Retreat, retreat!” Nathan wailed in Curtis’ ear. “We gotta find another way!”

Alisha and Kelly, who were in front, made a tight turn at a narrower street. Curtis followed them and Simon as best as he could but exhaustion was starting to take its toll on him. His lungs were burning in a way they hadn’t in many years, he was aching all over, and the fact that he couldn’t use his arms to balance himself the way he usually did when running was seriously slowing him down. Mercifully Nathan had shut up and Curtis could concentrate on the run, put all his body and mind into it. He had lost sight of the others but he didn’t let it distract him, nothing mattered but putting one foot in front of the other. Until suddenly, his foot caught on something and he stumbled, sent face forward on the ground. His knees hit the asphalt hard, he heard Nathan yell and they both fell together in a flail of limbs.

“Fuck, get off me, get the fuck off me.”

Curtis pushed Nathan on the side, ignoring his groans of protest.

“We have to hide, get behind that car, quick.”

He didn’t wait to see if Nathan was listening and crawled until he’d gained the protection of the car parked there. _Nikki_ , he thought desperately, the thought of her helping him fighting the fear. He held his breath while the zombies ran past them, his heart pounding so loud he was worried they would hear it. He waited several minutes after they were gone before he breathed out. 

“Fuck,” Nathan said breathlessly. “That was a close one.”

Curtis turned his head to glance at him. Nathan looked terrible, pale and panting, sweaty locks of hair sticking to his forehead like he’d been the one running with a dead weight on his back instead of being carried like a princess. 

Still, Curtis felt he had to ask. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nathan mumbled, voice muffled by the hand he was running over his face.

This, more than the way Nathan looked, alarmed Curtis. Nathan complained all the time, often for stupid shit. That he was being all stoic and shit right now was worryingly out of character.

“Are you sure? You don’t look fine. Is it… Is it that zombie shit again?”

“I don’t think so. Doesn’t feel the same. I just generally feel like shit.”

“Think you can get up and walk on your own?”

They couldn’t stay there, they had to find the others, and to be honest Curtis felt like crying just thinking about getting Nathan on his back again. More of that and he was the one who was going to need carrying.

“Yeah,” Nathan said. “I can try.”

Curtis got up, rolled his shoulders trying to ease the ache, and held out a hand; Nathan took it and pulled himself up. His grip on Curtis’ hand tightened briefly once he was up, and he shut his eyes tight.

“Ow, fuck,” he moaned.

“Nathan?” Curtis called.

Nathan raised a hand. “I’m good, I’m good. Just getting used to new heights.” He opened his eyes, blinked. “Okay, I’m alright.”

“Great. Care to let go of my hand, now?”

“Oh.” Nathan released his hand like it had burned him. “Sorry, man.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just move it.”

They started walking. It was eerily silent again but it didn’t make Curtis feel any less twitchy. He thought he should have taken something from the house to use as a weapon – that knife they’d killed Nathan with, maybe. Although, thinking about it, maybe it wouldn’t be of much use to him: if he was close enough to use a knife on a zombie then he was probably toast anyway. No, what he needed was a shotgun, to blow up some zombie heads like in the movies. Hell, right now he would settle for having Alisha and her surprise zombie-killing power at his side. 

Nathan suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Hey!” Curtis protested. Nathan’s nails were digging into his forearm. Curtis tried to shake off the painful grip. “Don’t touch me!”

“Shh! Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Shut up, you moron.”

Resisting the urge to rip off Nathan’s arm and shove it up his arse, Curtis complied. At first he couldn’t hear anything and was ready to get mad at Nathan, but as he opened his mouth for a tirade of righteous wrath a faint noise caught his attention. 

_Tap, tap, tap._

“What the fuck?” he murmured.

_Tap, tap._

“Sounds like footsteps,” Nathan said. “Maybe we should turn around…”

Simon materialized in front of them.

“AAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Nathan screamed, jumping back.

Curtis’s own little yelp was thankfully drowned by Nathan’s cry.

“Shit, Barry, don’t fucking do that you prick! You almost gave me a heart attack!” Nathan pressed both hands against his chest for emphasis. “I’m too young and beautiful to die of a heart attack, it would just be pathetic!”

The ease with which Simon ignored Nathan was nothing if not practised. Curtis could only hope to one day reach such a level of zen. 

“Come on, the girls are waiting for us. They’re holing up in someone’s garage.” Simon gave Nathan an up-and-down look. “You look better,” he added softly.

There was enough genuine concern in Simon’s expression for Nathan to squirm a bit. Curtis repressed a snicker. Seeing the prick seemingly at loss for words was always a treat.

“Yeah, well, you know me,” Nathan said. “Always bouncing back. The perks of being immortal.”

Curtis shoved at Nathan’s shoulder, not enough to hurt though it didn’t keep Nathan from sending him an outraged look. 

“We’re burning daylight. And the girls are alone.”

“Well,” Nathan said. “Alisha is the one who can kill zombies with the power of sex, so I’d worry more about us being out there without her protection, at the mercy of any zombie who wants to take a bite of us. Now that they had a taste of me I’m sure they’re going to want more. I’m probably too delicious to resist.”

“Oh shut up, Nathan. Just shut up.”

Curtis had to silently concede Nathan’s point though. He would just feel better when they were all reunited. 

\---

“Think they’re okay?”

Kelly didn’t avert her eyes from the door to answer Alisha.

“They’re alrigh’, they’re just taking their fuckin’ time. Don’t worry.”

It was easier said than done. Alisha glanced at Kelly, trying to draw confidence from her. Kelly was tightly holding a crowbar in her hands, her jaw set in a determined line. She looked ready to bash any zombies who would dare to force entrance. Alisha wished it could make her feel safer.

She had rolled up her sleeves, showing the bare skin of her forearms, and it was her only weapon. She would have liked to feel more confident about it; she tried to tell herself that she shouldn’t be afraid, she was the only one who had a real fighting chance. But she couldn’t escape that image of being submerged by a sea of zombies, being drowned into them, the smell of death all over her and their growls and the drool dripping from their mouths.

“They’d have to get through me first.” Kelly waved her crowbar. “See how fast they move without half of their face.”

Alisha gave her a smile, as a thank you for her comforting words and to show that she didn’t mind that Kelly had read her thoughts. She did feel a little better now. After all, Kelly had practice with bashing heads. 

Time stretched infinitely like chewing gum. Alisha chatted nervously to Kelly for a while, trying to forget that they were waiting in a garage for their friends or maybe zombies to show up, that it was cold and damp, that she was tired and thirsty and scared and so, so cold, like she had never been before, like she would never be warm again. 

She was afraid that Simon and Curtis might not be coming back. Okay, she worried a bit about Nathan too. She was afraid that the zombies _would_ come. The idea of being turned into a zombie was somehow scarier than death – she hated the idea of becoming something so ugly and disgusting.

Finally the zombies came, and in a sense, it was almost a relief because at least the terrible wait was over. They were heard before they could be seen, groaning and moaning in a way that should have been ridiculous because it seemed taken straight up from some cheesy zombie movie. But ridiculous, it was certainly not.

They pounded at the door, and there wasn’t much that Alisha and Kelly could do except get ready for them to get in, because the door leading to the rest of the house was locked and they hadn’t found any key. When the zombies finally shattered the door, Alisha couldn’t help but let a small yelp escape her. She and Kelly walked back as much as they could, which wasn’t much because a car was taking up most of the space in the garage. The zombies were coming at them slowly, maybe because they were unable to go faster, or maybe because they savoured the tension and the fear, and Alisha felt like she was stuck in slow motion in some action movie.

And then, they were on them.

From that point everything went confusingly fast – the zombies were groaning and drooling, cold and smelly and all she wanted was to shy away from their touch until she remembered that _her_ touch was poison to them, and then she threw her arms in front of her. They tried to bite her and she punched and slapped and kicked, moving uncontrollably as long as her skin touched their own cold, discomposing flesh. Disgust was almost more overwhelming than fear for a few moments.

The zombies fell one by one around her, screaming themselves hoarse like wounded beasts and dying – or dying _again_. When Alisha felt that she could finally draw a full breath without choking on zombie stench, she heard Kelly scream.

“Kelly!”

There was no time to think, so Alisha simply jumped forward and started trying to push the zombies away from Kelly. The zombies were slow to notice her but they were strong and intent on getting Kelly – who had bashed a certain number of zombies’ heads to a pulp, if the bodies were any indication. Alisha changed tactics and started to tear at their clothes and get her hands all over their faces and necks, anywhere where she could access naked skin. When the groaning stopped and silence fell on the garage, Kelly said, “Thank you.”

Her voice was rough and there was blood on her cheek. Alisha started to reach out but stopped mid-motion. 

“You’re hurt,” she said.

Kelly rubbed at her cheek, her expression a little frantic. She smeared the blood but when the wound was a little more visible, Alisha saw that it looked more like a scratch.

“It doesn’t look like a bite,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Some bruises, probably.” Kelly’s eyeliner had smeared and it made her eyes look huge. “How do we know that I can’t catch that shit through a scratch?”

Alisha gulped. She didn’t know what to say. They had no reason to think that only a zombie bite could turn you into a zombie, and Kelly knew that as well as she did. She thought about Kelly turning, about having to kill her. She looked down on the zombies on the floor and for the first time it occurred to her that they had been people before. They’d had family and friends, and Alisha had killed them. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, stupidly, and Kelly blinked at her.

“What are you sorry for?” she asked. “Saved my fuckin’ life didn’t you?”

Alisha nodded, but she couldn’t help the burn in her eyes. She dropped her head, trying to hide her tears. Fuck, she was so exhausted that her head hurt and she felt like she was floating.

“Hey, Alisha,” Kelly said, curving an arm around Alisha’s shoulders. Of course, there was no use hiding from a mind-reader. Alisha started sniffing helplessly, furious at the emotions bubbling inside her – exhaustion, fear, and confused guilt.

“Sweetie, don’t cry, you only did what you had to do,” Kelly whispered into her ear, uncharacteristically gentle, which only made Alisha cry harder. She didn’t know how to explain to Kelly that it wasn’t just the zombie killing, wasn’t just her worry for the guys, but a combination of the whole shitty situation and the fact that she was so. fucking. exhausted that she couldn’t think straight anymore. Whether it was because of her mind-reading ability or just her intuition, Kelly stopped talking and settled on rubbing Alisha’s shoulder.

“Hey!”

Alisha and Kelly both startled, even though it took Alisha no more than a split of second to recognize Simon’s voice. She wiped her face frantically with the back of her hand before she turned. Simon was standing by the entrance, his wide blue eyes going from the shattered door to Alisha and Kelly, then to the pile of zombies on the floor.  
“We’re okay,” Alisha said quickly. “And you?”

“Yeah, I’m fine… Are you sure you’re okay?”

Alisha started to smile when Curtis and Nathan gathered behind Simon’s back, gaping at the scene. They both looked tired and sweaty, but intact. Alisha felt some of the knot inside her stomach unwind slightly.

“Holy shit,” Nathan said. “Did you do this, ‘Lisha? Well, let me say that I’m glad you’re on our side.”

“You look better,” Alisha said dryly, and it had the unexpected effect to make Nathan flounder and blush.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m okay now.” Then he frowned. “Kelly, you hurt? You have, uh, blood on your face.”

Alisha and Kelly exchanged a quick look.

“It’s just a scratch,” Kelly said, and Alisha wondered if it was as obvious to the others as it was to her how hard Kelly was trying to be brave.

“But we don’t know how this thing is transmitted,” Nathan said, loud and oblivious idiot that he was, “And if you’re infected you will…”

“God,” Alisha snapped, “can’t you shut the fuck up?”

Curtis, who was standing the closest, elbowed him for good measure. Nathan looked outraged, but thankfully shut his mouth.

“It is very likely that biting is what does it,” Simon said. “The zombies were trying very hard to bite us.”

“Maybe they just like the taste of human flesh,” Nathan mumbled, and received a collective glare.

They stood in silence for a moment, Alisha and Kelly separated from the guys by a heap of foul-smelling zombies. It was obvious what everyone was thinking – Kelly wasn’t like Nathan, if she was infected there was no reset button. They would have to kill their friend. None of them voiced the fear, but Kelly was probably able to hear it in stereo as loud and clear as if they had been talking out loud.

“In any case, it won’t be long before we know for sure,” Simon said softly. “We should move.”

Alisha wasn’t going to object, that was for sure. She glanced at Kelly, who looked composed enough but a little pale under the blood on her face, and she wished she could take her friend’s hand. 

“Let’s go,” Kelly said firmly.

They slipped out carefully from the garage to the street, trying to do their best impression of shadows against walls. Alisha noticed that Simon didn’t turn invisible though, and the show of solidarity warmed her heart. She brushed her fingers against his elbow, and he smiled at her.

The silence in the street was nerve wracking. Alisha had never realized how used she was to city noise – cars driving by, horns honking, people walking the pavements and talking to their phones – before a wet blanket of silence just fell on the world. She walked on autopilot, tiredness making things distant and fuzzy. After a while she realized that she was falling behind Kelly, Curtis and Simon, and started to speed up when she heard Nathan stumble behind her, and felt him catch himself with a fistful of her shirt. She let out a startled cry.

“Sorry,” Nathan said.

Alisha twisted her neck to look at him.

“You alright?”

Nathan’s lips curved up, but it looked a little off.

“Still not 100% there, I guess,” he said, too serious and weary for Nathan.

The others had stopped, probably after hearing Alisha’s cry. Alisha and Nathan quickly caught up with them.

“We should pick a direction,” Curtis said, looking quickly over Alisha, like he was making sure she was fine. “We’re all exhausted, we can’t keep wandering aimlessly like that.”

“The community centre,” Nathan said. “We all know the place well, and there’s stuff there that we could use as weapons. We could hold the fort and rest for a while.”

The five of them exchanged looks, and Simon shrugged.

“Why not, it’s fine with me,” he said.

“I keep food there,” Nathan said, before they heard his stomach grumble, as if on cue.

“Then we agree? The community centre it is?” Curtis asked, his eyes resting on them, one after the other. Then he snorted. “Where it all started. Fucking ironic, isn’t it?”

Alisha smiled at the quip, but the truth was that she felt an amount of comfort at the idea of going there. She hadn’t been back since the end of their community service, but it held good memories.

\---

Nathan’s vision was starting to get blurry, which admittedly worried him a bit, but not enough that he thought it was worth mentioning to the others. It didn’t feel like the zombie whatever he’d felt earlier – he just was really, really tired, like he had gone through a day of community service work, then a whole night of playing video games until his eyes crossed. Not that video game nights were something he could do since he’d left home, which was a damn shame. Thinking about video games and home made him think about his mum, and wonder whether she’d come out of this apocalyptic bullshit safe and unzombified. Knowing her luck with men, chances were that fucking Jeremy had got himself turned and had attacked her. That would be just like the twat.

Nathan clenched his fists in preventive anger on his mum’s behalf, and was distracted enough by the thoughts that he stumbled again; this time Alisha was out of reach, and Nathan’s knees hit the ground painfully. 

“Ouch, _fuck_.”

“Nathan? You all right?”

It was a female voice, but the ringing in his ears made it difficult for Nathan to be sure whether it was Kelly or Alisha – or _Simon_. He should get up; the others were all going to piss and moan about how he was slowing them down; they probably would have a point and Nathan _really_ didn’t want any zombies to catch up with them. Even knowing that there was a possible out for him, he didn’t want to go through the whole fucking ordeal again. And the others could get turned into zombies – _Kelly, maybe Kelly is already a goner_ – which would just suck. 

_Get up, Nathan. Fucking get the fuck up and walk it off._

He tried to get up, but just fell on his arse and then didn’t have it in him to move. He was just done, worn out like a pair of threadbare jeans. He’d tried to hide from the others just how exhausted he was, because he didn’t want them to get the idea that he was having a relapse and try to dig in his chest with a knife again. Being immortal was cool, but dying was a fucking literal pain.

“I’m fine,” he said, sensing that at least one of them had come to his side – or rather, seeing their shadow on the ground next to his. He waved a hand at whoever that was.

“Yeah, you look totally fine.”

Nathan looked up, and it was Curtis; not that the amount of annoyed sarcasm in the voice hadn’t been enough of a clue. Sometimes Nathan wondered what was wrong with the guy.

“Well I don’t feel like I’m dying or anything, and it’s my new standard for fine.”

Curtis crouched down next to him, and the sound of footsteps told Nathan that the others were gathering around them. 

“Seriously, Nathan,” Curtis said in that special exasperated voice that he reserved for Nathan. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re going to be sick. If you are, by the way, say the word and I’ll take a step back.”

Nathan rubbed his face with his hands. He did feel a bit nauseous, but not bad enough that he thought he was about to throw up. He almost regretted it, as he felt that Curtis deserved a little puke on him right now.

“I’m just tired.”

He was so tired that he would have given his right hand for a bed, was what he didn’t tell Curtis. Wait, no, maybe not his right hand. You could always use a right hand. Maybe his left, then. The point was, he was ready to lie down and sleep off the rest of the week.

“Hey, Nathan.”

It was Kelly, and it was her hand on his shoulder. Nathan wanted to lean into the touch but even that was too much effort. 

“Maybe you need a break,” Kelly suggested. Nathan still had his hands pressed against his eyes, so all he saw was black with little flashes of light, but he imagined Kelly looking up at the others for approval. “I think we all need a break,” she added firmly.

Oh, Kelly, sweet Kelly. Nathan really hoped she wasn’t going to turn into a zombie.

“We can’t stop here,” Simon said. “We’re too exposed. But we could look for a safe place to rest for a bit.”

Nathan didn’t know when Simon had started to get assertive like that, but once he said that it was like the decision was made. Only problem was, it meant that Nathan had to get to his feet and on the move again, if only for a little while.

“Nathan?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m up.”

Nathan hauled himself up on his feet, his body heavy like he was wearing clothes doubled with lead. He kept his eyes closed, feeling like he could fall asleep right here and now. Someone grabbed his arm, a little roughly so he knew it was Curtis, and – what happened next was a little blurry in Nathan’s mind. They must have walked some more but the next time he opened his eyes, Kelly was propping him up against a wall.

Nathan blinked a few times, wondering about the time he’d lost.

“What time’s it?”

“I dunno. Simon?” 

It was dark, wherever they were, but Simon’s pale face was standing out. He looked like a ghost straight out of the lamest horror movie ever.

“It’s 1 pm,” he said.

Which didn’t really help Nathan, as the last time he’d known the time was on Monday evening, when the zombies had shown up at the bar. A lifetime ago. It didn’t matter much that it was daytime – that didn’t seem to stop the zombies.

“You alrigh’?” Kelly asked. 

She cupped his cheek briefly, before her hand fell back on her lap. Nathan missed the warmth as soon as it was gone – he’d felt chilled since he’d woken up from death and hadn’t managed to shake it off. 

“Hmm, yeah. You?” He remembered something and a jolt of adrenaline made him straighten up suddenly. “Hey, what about the…” He gestured at the scratch on Kelly’s cheek.

“Oh, that.” She raised her hand to her face. “I’m okay, I think. No symptoms or anythin’.”

It meant she would be fine, then, because even though Nathan didn’t know how much time had passed, he remembered that he had started to feel bad pretty soon after the bite. So there was that, at least. No zombie Kelly. Nathan sagged against the wall in relief. 

“Where are we?” he asked, fighting wearily against sleep. “Another garage?”

“No, we’re in someone’s tool shed.”

“Why don’t we get inside the house?” His arse was getting numb, and he shifted uncomfortably on the hard ground.

“Um, the house is… We’re better here.”

Against his will, Nathan’s eyes had closed again, but he forced himself to open them and frown at Kelly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’. Go back to sleep.”

“What happened? More zombies?” 

He was so fucking tired of zombies. They were only fun when he could shoot at them on a screen with his controller. 

“We found _rotting bodies_ in the house.”

Alisha’s voice made Nathan jump, and realize belatedly that she’d been sitting not far from him all along, leaning against the wall. She looked about as tired as he felt. Instinctively Nathan looked around for Curtis, the only one in their merry band not accounted for, and found him huddled in a corner, half hidden by shadows from a pile of rubbish. The only distinguishable part of him was the white of his eyes. 

“Hey,” Nathan said.

The white spots moved slowly in his direction.

“Feeling better, arsehole?” Curtis asked almost amiably, his voice low with exhaustion.

Nathan shut his eyes, not bothering to dignify the question with an answer. He needed a nap – or a medically induced coma. He closed his fists and pressed his nails into the palms of his hands, trying to use the pain to keep him alert. He wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to fight sleep or if it was okay to let go.

“Are we safe?”

“For the moment,” Simon said. “You can sleep. It’s alright.”

Nathan didn’t need to be told twice. It felt like he’d been hanging from the edge of a cliff by his fingertips – when he let go, he fell into a bottomless pit. 

 

The nap was all too short-lived – it felt like mere minutes had passed when Nathan choked out of sleep, waking up in cold sweat from a dream where he’d died – _again_. It was a wonder he’d lasted all those years without getting himself killed, because now that he was immortal it seemed that all he was doing was dying. 

It was even darker inside the tool shed, but he could hear the others breathing and they didn’t seem to have moved from where they were when Nathan fell asleep. He wondered if they were sleeping, and was about to ask his question aloud when a hand was shoved brutally against his mouth. He started moaning in protest.

“Keep silent, Nathan,” Kelly whispered urgently, her breath warm against the shell of his ear. “Not a sound. They’re _here_.”

It was one of those situation where the meaning of _they_ was perfectly clear: zombies, the only _they_ left in their lives – and besides, Nathan could hear them now, hear the desperate howls and gurgling groans. They sounded halfway between animals and people in slow agony, which wasn’t a comforting combination. 

They remained like that for a while, Nathan’s muscles coiled for fight or flight and Kelly breathing harshly against his neck. And then, very suddenly, the moans of the zombies died. The silence that followed was positively graveyard-like. 

‘Think it’s safe to get out?” Alisha whispered after a moment.

“One way to find out,” Curtis said. None of them had the time to say anything: he was already gone.

They didn’t hear him yell in fear or agony, but the silence that followed Curtis sliding out was oppressive, until they heard him call, “You can come out.”

He sounded odd, but Nathan didn’t think much of it before he pushed the creaking door of the tool shed and stepped out in the backyard.

For a moment, he didn’t have enough breath to even say a word.

Then, “Holy _fuck_.”

The garden was crowded. The good news was that the intruders looked like people, not like zombies. There were people of all ages, men and women, and they weren’t really doing anything, mostly just hanging out in the narrow backyard and looking confused. Somehow, it was one of the most disturbing thing Nathan had seen since the zombies had come.

“Who the hell are you?” he blurted out.

His friends looked at him strangely. For some reason, they’d had their eyes turned to the ground the moment before, but Nathan dismissed it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked a blond woman who was standing not far from him.

She turned a frightened look toward him, her pale eyes open wide, eating her face.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice so low Nathan could barely hear her. “Nothing makes sense. I think – I think I bit my _husband_.”

Nathan frowned. He was about to ask the woman more questions when Alisha interrupted him harshly, “Who the hell are you talking _to_ , Nathan?”

“Not to _you_. I’m trying to have a conversation here, Alisha.”

“With _who_?”

“With that woman.” Nathan waved a hand impatiently. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Lucy.”

“Nathan.” 

Nathan sighed in irritation. “What?”

The others were staring at him. And they looked, like, _scared_ , like when they had figured that a zombie had bitten Nathan and that it was killing him. Nathan was starting to get a bit worried.

“Nathan,” Simon said seriously – even more seriously than usual, which was a feat in itself. “There’s no one in the backyard but us. No one _alive_ , anyway.”

_Oh._

Against his best instincts, Nathan looked down to the ground and saw that it was covered with bodies. Rotten, smelly zombie bodies, which for some reason he hadn’t smelled before. It meant that all the people he was seeing were dead. 

Unfortunately, some of them had heard what Simon had said, and had looked, and now a wind of panic was blowing over all the dead-undead-dead people crammed in the backyard.

“ _Dead?_ I’m not dead, am I? I can’t be dead,” Lucy was wailing. “Oh god I can see myself over there. Oh god. I’m _disgusting_.”

And so on. The other ghosts were all babbling along the same lines, like distorted echoes in a cave.

“Ooookay,” Nathan said to his friends. “Let’s get out of here.”

He turned on his heels and started walking without looking back to see if they were following.

They were, of course.

“Wait, Nathan,” Kelly said. “What happened? What are they sayin’?”

“What do you think? They’re _dead_. They need to get used to the idea. They’re freaking out. I know I would be – except that I don’t die, of course.”

As it happened, leaving the backyard didn’t free Nathan from dead people at all. It seemed that they were fucking _everywhere_ , and at various stages of comprehending what had happened to them. And once they realized that Nathan could hear and see them, it was like he was the fucking Messiah – only it wasn’t as cool as it sounded. They were following him and yapping at him, and Nathan tried to do his best to tune them out but they were as tenacious as ghosts as they had been as zombies. The others kept sliding worried glances in his direction, like they were afraid he was about to lose his mind or something.

“It’s all because of Lauren! I’m telling you, _she_ did this! Hey!”

A young man of about their age, tall and lanky and as stubborn as a one of those ankle-biting dogs, kept yelling in Nathan’s ear and trying to grab him to stop him. At first it was annoying, but as the other ghosts gave up when they saw Nathan wasn’t acknowledging them and _he_ wasn’t, it became downright infuriating.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, Nathan stopped dead and clenched his fists. “What the _hell_ is your problem?” he asked the ghost. “I’m not a ghost whisperer, I won’t lead you into the light or some other bullshit of that kind, so leave me the fuck alone.”

“It’s Lauren,” the ghost said.

“Yeah, I got that. Who is Lauren and why the fuck should I care?”

“She’s my girlfriend.” Nathan cocked an eyebrow and the young man added hastily, “She’s the one who started all this. The zombies, I mean. We were, um. You know. Well, she bit me and then I… turned. And I bit someone else, and… But then I died – for real this time. And I know she’s the one who did it.”

“Uh, Nathan?” It was Simon calling him, but Nathan shushed him impatiently.

“Do you know where she is? How’s she doing this?”

The ghost shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know she is. I thought I should tell you. Someone has to _do_ something.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Another shrug, and Nathan would have punched him if it he had been able to – now that he had said his piece, the man seemed to think that it was Nathan’s problem to deal with. Nathan took a breath and turned to his friends, who were watching him with various combinations of worry and irritation.

“Okay, so according to this guy,” Nathan threw a thumb over his shoulder, then remembered that the others couldn’t see the ghost, “well, according to him his girlfriend Lauren – who is a biter apparently – is the one who is responsible for the zombie epidemic. She bit him, he bit someone else, and the rest is history. He also thinks it’s because of her that the zombies are now dropping like flies.”

A silence followed his declaration. He waited for one of them to make a suggestion, until he realized that _they_ were waiting for him to say something.

“Um,” he said. “What do we do now?”

“We should talk to this girl,” Alisha said.

“Only we don’t know where the fuck she is,” Curtis said.

“She has to be somewhere around here,” Simon said, his eyebrows knitted together in a frown. “If she’s killed those zombies, she must not be very far.”

Nathan looked around. To the others the area was probably eerily silent and empty, but to him it was crowded and bustling with ghosts in the middle of an existential crisis. The girl had to be hiding somewhere, but the idea of spending time and energy trying to find someone who most likely didn’t want to be found had Nathan exhausted all over again.

“Lauren!” he yelled suddenly. “Come here right the fuck now! We need to talk!”

His friends _and_ the ghosts were looking at him like he’d finally lost it, but he didn’t care. Because he was tired of it all. His mum was probably dead, as were the parents of Kelly, Simon, Alisha and Curtis; his friends, _everybody_ else in the town was maybe going to die and where would that leave Nathan? Alone, undying, standing on a pile of decaying bodies.

“Lauren!”

It was only because all the ghosts had stopped talking that Nathan was able to hear the faint voice saying, “Stop yelling.”

He turned. The others gathered at his back but none of them said anything. The girl was young, younger than Nathan by a few years, short and tiny in a big, worn out jumper with too long sleeves that were hiding her hands. Her long, greasy hair hung in front of her face like she was trying to hide behind it, but her eyes were fixed warily on Nathan.

“I talked with your boyfriend,” Nathan said, because he figured he had to start that conversation somewhere.

Lauren’s eyes widened. “It’s impossible. He’s…”

“I see dead people.”

“Oh.”

“And I’m immortal.”

“Um, okay.” 

It wasn’t clear whether she didn’t believe him, or was too shocked by the awesomeness of his powers to think of a reply.

“Your boyfriend told me you’re the one who started the zombies. Is it true?”

She flushed a bright red and bowed her head so that her face was almost completely hidden.

“I didn’t want to,” she mumbled. “We were just making out, and I bit him and then he changed and tried to bit me. I didn’t realize it was my fault until…”

She paused for so long that Nathan got impatient. “Until what?”

“Until I discovered I could kill the zombies.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said, “How are you doing that by the way? Because you don’t seem to have any weapon, and I know they’re not easy to kill because I got some of ‘em myself.”

“I just look at them and I… imagine I’m shooting them. Like in some of the games I play.”

“You like video games?” Simon asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, and so what?” Lauren replied defensively.

“Oh, uh, nothing.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. He bet Simon had been about to ask her what her favourite games were.

“Tell me, Lauren,” he said, trying to take back control of the conversation. “Were you by any chance in town when there was this weird storm back a few months ago?”

“Oh, yes, I remember that.” There was a general gasp behind him, but Nathan couldn’t imagine that the others were any more surprised than he was. “I was walking back from David’s,” Lauren went on. “I was almost hit by lightening.”

Nathan was pretty sure that “almost hit” was some kind of euphemism for “I was totally hit but I don’t know how I’m still alive and it freaks me out.” Although seriously, after decimating most of the town population, Nathan would imagine that Lauren had more important things to be freaked about.

But he didn’t say anything. Whether Lauren realized or not that the storm was responsible for her new zombie making – and _unmaking_ – power didn’t really matter. The town had fallen under the actions of a girl who liked zombie-shooting video games, and really shouldn’t be allowed to bite anyone even in sexual circumstances.

“All that because she bit her boyfriend,” Kelly muttered, either reading Nathan’s thoughts or just stating the obvious.

And that was just so fucking funny Nathan could have laughed until he cried. He didn’t have the time to break into hysterics though, as Curtis gripped his arm tightly.

“Uh, guys,” he said. “We’re about to…”

 _Oh, right,_ Nathan thought, _Mr Time Traveller_ finally _remembers he has a power. That’s ab…_

\---

At first Lauren tried to ignore the bell ringing, because David’s hands were under her t-shirt, her mouth was on his neck, and she really had better things to do than answer the door.

Only, when the ringing stopped, it was replaced by furious knocking, like whoever was behind the door was trying to break it. Lauren pushed David aside, and threw her legs off the couch.

“Want me to come with you?” David asked.

“No, but stay by the phone.”

She went to the front door and opened it: it revealed a group of about five or six people she didn’t know. One of them, a black boy she thought she might have seen somewhere before, looked her up and down and said, “Tell me you didn’t bite your boyfriend.”

“Huh?”

He walked past her and entered the house without permission, followed by his friends. Lauren was too stunned to try and keep them out.

“Lauren,” the boy said, leaving Lauren to wonder how he knew her name, “we need to have a _really fucking long_ conversation with you. You like zombies, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for smallfandombang. I've been working on and off on this story for about a year. Honestly, I don't think I would have found the motivation to finish it if not for that challenge! So thanks to the mods of smallfandombang for organizing it. Thank you to roque_clasique for working as a beta on this story even though she wasn't familiar with the show. And of course, thank you to my artist, sentbyfools, for choosing my summary and making lovely art for it. Don't forget to check her post [here](http://o-duibuqi.livejournal.com/16220.html) and leave her comments!


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